


A Little Knowledge

by Erinya



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean RPF
Genre: F/M, RPF, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-15
Updated: 2006-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-07 16:37:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erinya/pseuds/Erinya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What they know doesn't help them it all.  It just makes this chemistry more dangerous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Dangerous Thing

**Author's Note:**

> The following fiction is not in any way intended to reflect or speculate on the characters, behavior, or morality, etc, of any real-life persons named, all of whom I respect intensely. It is merely self-indulgent fantasy on the part of the author. This was written as a result of a stubborn craving for Johnny/Keira fic and the subsequent discovery that there isn't a whole lot out there.
> 
> Notes 6/13/2012: This fic...oh, this fic. It became popular beyond my darkest imaginings, even garnering an E!Online quote in an article about fanfiction, much to my horror! I always intended to write a third part, in which the two actors practiced their notorious first kiss in private...but somehow it never quite sounded right. Not true to them.
> 
> I almost didn't post this to the Archive out of shame...but then I decided to own it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What Keira knows isn't helping.

Oh, she knows. She knows that his heart is full of Lily-Rose and small Jack and his Vanessa. She knows that even though he's never vowed himself to his children's mother, the bond between them is strong and deep and true. She knows that he's technically old enough to be her father, although he doesn't look it, except maybe around the eyes; and from the pictures and films of him she's seen-- _pored over, watched into the wee hours in her trailer when she should be sleeping, when the flickering light from the TV screen keeps the hot, alien Jamaican night at bay, when his image seems to look at and into and through her just as it does when she must stand so close to him on set under the eyes of everyone and pretend to affect a facade of disinterest that conceals a disquietingly strong attraction, art imitating life imitating art_ \--his eyes always looked much older than the rest of him, looked deeper than they had a right to look.

"An old soul," she'd dared to call him once. They'd all gathered in a cantina during the first on-site shoot of the first film, and the famed Caribbean rum had finally started to do its work, loosening her tongue-tied awe a little. He'd laughed at the assessment and said, "Nah. Or not old enough to be wise, anyway. Just damned for the fuck-headedness of my youth."

They were still finding their balance with each other and the project, then, she most of all; the others, Geoffrey, Johnny, Jack, Jonathan, and even Orlando, were all more experienced with this sort of thing, stars in their own right, and she felt impossibly young and amateurish beside them. She was still waiting for Jerry Bruckheimer to realize his gross error in casting and send her packing back to London. But none of the men had treated her like an outsider or a child; they had all been kind, and included her in their jokes--although she suspected they toned said jokes down a bit in her presence--and Johnny had caught her hand unexpectedly that day during shooting and told her, gently, to relax. "I don't bite," he'd said, and grinned. The gold teeth, which she had secretly thought ridiculous at first, suited him, just like the tattoos and the jewelry, even when he let the Jack character slide and shift away into the shadows of his chiseled face and became just Johnny smiling at her, genuine and laughing and warm. She'd felt that warmth linger in the skin of her hand where he'd touched her, and on her cheeks, long after the moment passed.

"I know," she said, and then admitted, "It's not you. I'm just terrified I'll bollocks it up beyond all hope of repair!"

"Don't be," he said. "Leave the bollocksing to me." He lowered his voice, jerking his thumb in the direction of the small knot of suits who stood a little aside from the set, looking dour and out-of-place in their power ties and Ray-bans. "See those guys? They're not worried about you in the least. It's me who's got them shaking in their nice Armani shoes. Watch this."

He catapulted the next take from the comic into the absurd, mugging atrociously at her and at the camera and swishing about like a drunken drag queen until she dissolved into laughter and killed the scene completely.

"There," he said. "That'll give 'em something to frown over."

"It is a bit much," she said, between giggles. "I mean, really. You're going to give the poor bastards a collective heart attack."

"One can only hope," he said, with a touch of his Jack Sparrow brogue, and added in his own voice, with a spark of quiet viciousness that surprised her, "Fucking corporate vampires."

"They're producers. They can't help it, it's like a job requirement, innit? They have to sell their imaginations to the Devil to make it big in Hollywood. And if they didn't, who would pay us?"

"Good point," he said, wry. "Another reason I don't spend a lot of time in that place." He gave her one of those looks, then, the sort that made her shiver. As if she was naked, although the knowledge and intensity of his gaze wasn't the lecherous variety but a mixture of bad old memories and...recognition? As if she was his mirror, and he saw himself in her eyes. "It'll suck the life and light right out of you if you're not careful. Even a light as young and bright as yours, little Keira." Leaning in, so near she could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek, could smell his scent of smoke and Old Spice, he added, "Don't let it."

She opened her mouth to speak, to ask him "How?" perhaps, or what he meant, what he thought Hollywood had taken from him, but found she had no breath left to voice the question. And then it was time to do the scene again--"with a little less...uh... _wrist_ , please, Johnny?"--and he smiled brightly and was cheerful and professional again, tossing off a joking retort to Terry Rossio and transforming himself into Jack Sparrow so thoroughly that she and everyone else watching forgot that he was rewriting the character of the script and storyboards into something none of them could have imagined, "into something rich and strange," fascinating and _alive_ and not at all studio-approved.

Was that where it started? That day, in his eyes?

She doesn't know. But somehow she forgets all the things she does know when he bends his head towards her with that smoldering expression, drawling a line of innuendo she doesn't remember reading in her script, his fingers ( _Jack_ 's fingers, she reminds herself desperately and unsuccessfully) idly twining through a wayward strand of hair, their bodies close enough to touching that she can feel the heat of him. She forgets that they are acting, that the desire she reads in his face must be false, for the camera and not for her at all; forgets that Jack Sparrow is not Johnny and that Johnny is not Jack; forgets her own character, that Miss Elizabeth Swann is not supposed to want Jack Sparrow to kiss her. The seconds stretch between them, and perhaps he feels it after all, because his fingers tighten on her shoulder and his indrawn breath is sharp and not entirely steady.

" _Cut_!"

They break apart with the alacrity of the guilty. Keira, her heartbeat loud in her ears, face flushing, cannot look at Johnny. She feigns heat exhaustion and escapes to the refreshment table to gulp cool water and not think of his eyes and hands on her or of the scene, yet to be shot, in which she must kiss him, really kiss him, and pretend that she's acting when she pretends to pretend that she wants him.


	2. Drink Deep or Taste Not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What Johnny knows isn't helping, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously, the original title mangled the quote (it's really "a little _learning_ is a dangerous thing.") "A Little Learning" would be an entirely different fic, though.

**Drink Deep, or Taste Not**

Yeah, of course he knows. He tried to ignore it at first, but she's all too easy to read. He hears it in the nearly-concealed hitch in her voice when she speaks to him, sees it in her heightened color, the way her gaze follows him and then slides away when he looks up to meet it. It surprises him, her transparency, for young though she may be, he knows she's quite the accomplished little actress.

He begins to wonder if she _wants_ him to know, after all.

He knows that Jamie hasn't been visiting her as much lately, although he doesn't know whether that lapse is a symptom or a cause of this...thing...she's nursing. Call it a crush. It can't be more; they both know that. He hopes.

Still, there's danger here between them. He knows that well enough; and not just because she exudes the kind of beauty that he's always found irresistible. Certainly that graceful gamine body, those luminous eyes and delicate features of hers, occasionally trouble his dreams-- _smooth skin, the slender curve of her waist, the shape of her against him, small pert breasts filling his hands, his name desperate on her lips as she wraps her legs around him and he sinks into her, takes her, the hot breathless Island night pulsing around them as if in approbation_ \--but if they do, he draws on them to fuel his acting and reminds himself that he often dreams in character while on a project. Tells himself that these are Jack Sparrow's dreams, and not his own at all.

That's not what worries him.

She'd asked him, once, during the second week of shooting on _Dead Man's Chest_ , "Johnny, do you ever…" And trailed off, tracing the rings of condensation on the table with her finger, frowning into her glass. They'd been stuck inside the hotel VIP lounge for several hours, waiting for word on whether they'd be working tomorrow in spite of increasingly dire hurricane advisories, or if the production team was going to pay to fly them all home for the duration. Confronted with forced inaction, Johnny smoked incessantly; Jack, Kevin, and Naomi began a cutthroat but well-lubricated poker tournament; Orlando, blessed by a conjugal visit—lucky son of a bitch that he was—had vanished in the direction of his suite, his lovely Kate in tow. Keira merely fidgeted, chattering brightly and inconsequentially; so the abrupt change in tone that accompanied her words made Johnny sit up a little in his chair and turn to look at her.

Curious when no further query appeared forthcoming—his full attention, now given, seemed to unnerve her, for she dropped her head and bit her lip--he prompted, "Well? Do I ever _what_?"

She glanced up at him suddenly, seriously; the intensity of that glance sent a shock through him, something like adrenaline. Alarm, even. It stilled his hand for a moment as he stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray. But she went on to say, "When you're acting. Do you ever get…blurred? I mean, forget where you end and where your character begins?"

Relieved, he laughed. "Oh, yeah. Always. That's what acting is. The process of losing yourself." He searched his pockets for his rolling papers and the right words. _Ah._ "You learn everything about that character, really get to know him. Or her. Of course the edges blur." His practiced fingers made short work of his next smoke; he tongued the end, regarded her thoughtfully. "Almost like falling in love, isn't it?"

He flicked open his Zippo, and saw the spark flare in her eyes. "You want to crawl inside someone else's skin," she said softly, holding his gaze. "Only when you act, you _can_. You forget yourself."

"Creative abandon," he said, equally softly. "Yeah. It's a kind of happy insanity. Like love." He grinned. "Or, you know, just plain insanity. Multiple personalities. We're all a little psychotic in this business."

"Speak for yourself," she laughed. "I'm quite sane, thanks."

"Give it time," he growled. Then, struck by a thought, he leaned forward, pointing his cigarette at her for emphasis. "And if you aren't crazy yet, maybe you should be. Art, any art, is about letting go, Keira. Not holding back. Not staying safe."

"Rather like love," she said. Her face, upturned to his, glowed with the flush of discovery, her lips slightly parted, her eyes dark and wide and shining.

Sweet Christ, she was lovely. And young, so very young. He felt suddenly ancient, a tarnished old man next to her incandescent purity.

"Mmm." He drew a deep breath, sat back in his chair. "Exactly like love."

She appeared to remember that she had a drink in front of her, took a small, distracted sip. "But how do you get _you_ back? After you've risked it all and lost yourself?"

"You don't."

"What do you mean, you don't?"

"The metaphor holds up. How do you bring yourself back from love? You don't. It changes you. Each and every time."

"But when it's over…when you go your separate ways…"

"You put yourself back together. But you won't ever be the same."

She considered this, wide-eyed. "That's…terrifying."

"Yeah. Yeah, it is. But it's worth it. It's joyous." He knocked ash off the end of his cig into the tray, quirked an eyebrow at her. "Ever been in love, Keira?"

"No." She blushed, looks away. "Yes. I…maybe. I don't know."

"Then you haven't. If you had, you'd know it."

She grimaced. "You shouldn't say things like that. You sound just like my Dad."

"I'm old enough to be," he said, meaning to remind them both.

"I'm not that young," she protested, inaccurately.

"Oh, but I am that old."

She'd shot him an odd look, then, like she wanted to say something more, but thought better of it; he had pretended not to notice. They'd been allowed to fly home that night, the separate planes that carried them skirting the edges of the gathering storm that tore through carefully-constructed sets and scuppered their production schedule for six precious weeks of Provence and Vanessa and his little ones; and he didn't think much at all of Keira when he was sprawled on the floor under joint attack by Jack and Lily-Rose, or in later hours under a wholly different brand of irresistible assault by his wife.

But when they are called back again, finally, to resume the project, and Keira presses up against his back, warm and pliant as the cameras roll and she murmurs in his ear ( _You do know Will taught me how to handle a sword_ , and that throaty voice she's using for the line makes it hard, indeed, to miss its double edge) he knows that something's changed about her in those too-short weeks. And when he turns to look at her and sees not the blithe, bubbly Miss Knightley but instead a fierce Elizabeth Swann—all powerful desire and self-righteous pride—he knows.

Keira's stopped playing it safe, and now she's well and truly lost.

He smiles; Jack Sparrow smirks. And when she tilts her face up to his, eyes half-lidded and dark with Elizabeth's lust, her breath warm on his cheek, he's lost right along with her. He forgets that he's a father, and she barely more than a child at nineteen—twenty, now, because he sent her flowers on her birthday; not that it matters, she's still young enough to be his daughter either way—forgets that he knows it's wrong to want her this way, for she's _not_ his daughter after all, and they both know it all too well. Forgets the degree to which he's been feeling his age lately, thinks that to taste the sweet vibrancy of her would be to forget that gnawing awareness of time, of having everything to lose; thinks even that her touch might erase the cold sense of mortality from the back of his neck and the base of his spine. He forgets himself, gives in to piracy and the surge of Jack's blood pounding in his ears as it races south to his groin.

Even though they've read the script, he knows they both think for a moment that he's really going to kiss her. Perhaps Gore thinks so, too, because Johnny hears him, faintly, shouting " _Cut!_ " It takes another moment for the directive to register before they break apart. Keira's deep flush belies her attempt at a casual grin before she flees below, muttering something about the heat.

He seats himself on one of the prop cannons, accepting the bottle of water handed to him absently as he comes back to himself, carefully piecing back together enough of Johnny to get by with from the soul of Jack, and willing his hard-on to subside.

This is going to be a long shoot, he thinks. A long project, with another whole movie to go, and he and Keira will have to play a full range of variations on this theme, carry this tension through scene after scene. And they haven't even made it to the actual Big Movie Kiss yet. _Well, fuck._

And then he thinks, at least he will have his chance to taste her.

"Oh, _fuck_ ," he says, startling the makeup artist who has swooped down upon him to touch up the "raw spot" on his jaw. "Sorry, Heather. Ignore me. Ravings of a madman. Carry on with Jack's syphilis, by all means."

He wonders, not for the first time, just how closely Jack Sparrow's desires are woven into his own, and whether he'll be able to untangle them when the third movie is finally in the can, whether he knows even now which threads are which. And he wonders which of them is really crazier, in the end.


End file.
